Just realised that one strange thing just happened.
I haven't played TC:E in three weeks.
First time since... what? Many years?
My problems with the terrible framerate of this game was maybe the reason, but shouldn't be.
Few months ago I was still sure, that I would be the last person to play this game. I would witness the departure of the second last player. Being alone in some of the official map, maybe railhouse. Being tired but still happy after all I have experienced with TC:E. Walking in the empty corridors, trying to find the last vanishing bulletholes. Trying to do the last trickjumps. Then /kill.

I'm not so sure about it now.
The fun just went so much down after I realised my framerate.

Fun thing was that less than one hour before the NC2009 final between Turkey/Croatia and Finland my computer was still in pieces. Trying to fast download TS and TC:E. I was sure that I would not play in it, but still wanted to see it from ETTV. 15 minutes before the match everything worked. Went to ETTV channel, drinked few beers. And then team Finland had few problems, so i had to go in for the few final rounds. I was playing in the middle of the railhouse, guarding as an spec-op the warehouse door. I lagged, lagged like hell. I had something like 5 FPS. Thought it was windows doing some updates. Hell my brand new installed OS was something like 1 hour old. But no. It was my crappy new computer. It didn't matter, it was just few last rounds. I wouldn't make any difference in the final score anyways, but I was pissed, 'cause I didn't make a single kill.

After that I tried to get this game working for an long time. Nothing helped. Many people (thank you) gave me hints what to try next. But no.

I would love to come back. I will probably try, maybe once more try to install this awesome game.

I knew it would go bad after some new parts. Hell. I think I had the oldest install of TC:E in the world. Before that NC2009 final I had installed this game only once. The first time. I still had the original install. Well of course the original install of 0.49b, but even with 0.49 and 0.48 and so on, I had never reinstalled this game. I never had any problems. Not crashes, anything.

I liked year 2009. I got rid of some of my terrible debts to the banks. Met nice girl in spring. Gonzofest in the summer was nice. Fixed my car in the condition, that driving with it wouldn't be anymore illegal. And so on. But seriously. If I can't fix this game anymore, it would be the year that I remember the death of my virtual life.

I'm not a gamer. I don't enjoy games that much. I don't understand anything about computers. Hell. TC:E was the first game I ever installed in my whole life. I bought my first computer (that got *i-need-a-broader-vocab* up late 2009) only few years ago. I don't spend any time in other virtual life things like "Facebook" and such. I have interest trying something different on my computer but probably only things I'm going to do with it from now on will be my e-mail, pornsites and trying to find some cheap spare parts for other technical devices like cars.

Goddamn, writing this topic took, what? Hours. I can't even still find the letter buttons very well.

This community was always something much more than some gamers trying to be better than others. I made contacts with many people in real life also through this channel. Of course it would be totally pointless to play game if you have any competition in it, but all the competition in this particular masterpiece was always more friendly and someway different. Just looking some other games nowadays with those "achievements" and statistics make me puke. TC:E kinda reseted everything after a single round. I play. You die. You play again. Nothing remains. Pointless in its way but still with only few guns and maps and players every round was so someway unique.

There will be never another TC:E. And btw. you don't probably care, but I will be back. As soon as possible. Even if the most servers go down, and there won't be any players left. I will still be around. Maybe join some empty official server and just look around. Empty my clips to the walls and try that again. Plant the bomb and try to survive from the explosion by hiding it on the top of the crate itself.